Bloody Bloody Andrew Jackson

By Richard Zoglin

Written by Alex Timbers

Broadway's Bernard B. Jacobs Theatre

And now, the downside of rock on Broadway. The guitars are electric, the
language X-rated and the staging in-your-face (the sensory assault begins
with the Christmas lights festooning the orchestra seats). But this
political burlesque, though energetically acted and featuring a
grabby rock score by Michael Friedman, is so overwrought and
simpleminded that it quickly becomes a trial to sit through, and something
of an insult. The idea, children, is that Andrew Jackson, our first populist
President, was actually the 1820s equivalent of a rock star (cue
Tea Party references), as well as a martinet and a racist who
was responsible for the slaughter and forced relocation of the Indians.
There's certainly a historical argument here, but this musical has all the
political sophistication of a Sarah Palin Twitter rant. Between the
buffoonish antics (Jackson foes like John Quincy
Adams and Henry Clay played as cartoon twits)
and almost total lack of dramatic fluidity (key events like Jackson's loss
of the 1924 presidential election through backroom Senate dealing are simply
announced by a narrator), the revisionism just looks like a lame high school
prank.